When Surviving Isn’t the Same as Recovering with Savio Clemente

Surviving a crisis and recovering from it are not the same thing.

Two-time cancer survivor Savio Clemente joins Pam to explore the invisible period after disruption, when the emergency has passed but your body, clarity, and identity are still finding their way forward. Together, they discuss post-crisis recovery, adaptive resilience, self-forgiveness, intentional silence, and who we become through the experiences that change us.

The crisis ends. The treatment stops. Everyone expects you to move on.

But internally, you may still be recovering.

Savio Clemente is a keynote and TEDx speaker, journalist, board-certified health and wellness coach, bestselling author, and two-time cancer survivor. After experiencing a cancer relapse, stem cell transplant, and 29 days in isolation, Savio discovered that surviving was only part of the journey.

In this conversation, Pam and Savio explore:

• The hidden post-crisis leadership gap
• Why performance doesn’t fail first, clarity does
• Healing through silence and stillness
• Savio’s ALOHA Reboot
• Recognizing early signs of cognitive and emotional depletion
• The self-forgiveness many survivors struggle to name
• Finding purpose and identity after survival mode
• Adaptive resilience and the nonlinear nature of healing

PAM’S PAUSE POINT

Sometimes the pause isn’t keeping us from moving forward. It is where we become still enough to discover what moving forward should look like.

CONNECT WITH SAVIO CLEMENTE

Website: https://www.saviopclemente.com
Substack: https://substack.com/@thehumanresolve
Social media: @thehumanresolve

WATCH OR LISTEN

https://geni.us/dtb-savio-clemente 

THE JOURNEY, WEEK 3: BUILDING MOMENTUM
One choice becomes another.
https://tpkkconcepts.com/delay-the-binge-the-journey/

Content note: This episode includes discussion of cancer, medical treatment, trauma, and strong language. The experiences shared are personal and should not be considered medical or mental-health advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your individual circumstances.

Transcript

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When The Crisis Ends

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to Delay the Bend, the podcast where we explore the pause between impulse and action, reaction and response, and help high-functioning people recognize the hidden patterns quietly draining their lives before those patterns become unhealthy coping habits, self-sabotage, or disconnection from themselves. Today we're talking about something that many people experience, but few people understand. What happens after the crisis ends? Because surviving something difficult and recovering from it are not always the same thing. Many of us know how to push through. Far fewer of us know how to recover. My guest today is Savio Clemente. Sabio is a keynote and TEDx speaker, journalist, board certified health and wellness coach, best selling author, and a two-time cancer survivor, y'all. His work explores what happens after disruption. When the crisis is over, the world expects us to move on. But internally, we're still making sense of what happened. Through his own experiences, thousands of interviews, and years of research, Savio helps leaders understand how pressure, recovery, identity, cognition, and clarity intersect. Savio, welcome to Delay the Bend.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Thank you so much, Pam. What a wonderful intro. Thank you so much for giving voice to my life. I appreciate that. Well, it's an honor, truly.

A Calling To Share The Story

SPEAKER_02 1:36

So before we get into all the leadership and recovery, what are what's the mo what are you most excited about in your work right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I really enjoy keynoting. And the reason why it's not because of the applause. Trust me, I tell I tell people jokingly that I'm an extrovert for money, like Tina Turner with she was a dancer for money. I'm an extrovert for money. Filters to those people in their own teams, organization, family, community. And that's a lot of power. And so for me, I just feel privileged and honored to do the work that I do.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

It is such a privilege, and I have to remind myself of that. All I can look back now at my life, my past, and just see how it was all bringing me to this point of sharing my story, this message that's just burning inside of me, sharing it to as many people as I can. And to be a speaker, it's not easy. Even if you were the most successful speaker in the world, that's even more difficult because you got to travel all over the world. And people think, but it is hard. You're constantly on the move. And but I wouldn't have it any other way. I am like you. I just love it so much.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah. And I it's a calling, and also there's a connection there that you can't replicate in some other way. Uh I can't explain it. I because of my relapse, which happened in June of 2024, which wasn't that long ago, almost two years now. I I felt stifled from not being able to do the work, but more stifled for the fact that I couldn't impart what I went through and hopefully what I become. I think people forget that. They think that the crisis happens, they just gotta get better from the crisis, and then they're the lucky ones. But I think it's about who we become through that process. And it and most people won't understand if they haven't been through massive adversity. Like I tell people all the time, my story is dramatic. Okay, I'm not gonna lie. Two-time cancer survivor, come on. That's like that's crazy. But this could be a divorce, business failure, getting fired, someone betraying you, a whole bunch of things can happen.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

It can. And I always say when I first put my book out, I didn't think many people would read it. I didn't think it would become a bestseller. But what I thought was I was one of few that grew up like that. But in reality, I was one of many. And many that had it far worse. And so it was just a huge eye-opener for me, and I'm sure for you too. But if if we share the story, we can help many. I was trying hard to decide.

The Post-Crisis Leadership Gap

SPEAKER_02 4:56

There were so many areas I could start out, but I want to start with uh something you talk about post-crisis leadership gap. What is that?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah. It's that hidden period after sustained pressure of any kind, where performance seems to be stabilized, but then we have cognitive fatigue, cognitive overload, residual stress, degradation of decision making, all these quote unquote terms that people use in the business world, which is important. But basically, what it means is that you ain't feeling good, you ain't feeling right, and you know as well as I do, if you ain't feeling good and feeling right, you ain't gonna make any good decisions. That's just the bottom line. And so I work with a lot of healthcare leaders because they're the ones who are supposed to take care of us or at least are assigned to do that. But they're not great themselves. They're not operating at full levels. And that's why burnout is such a big deal. And after COVID, it tested all those systems as well. And so it's really about recognizing those hidden patterns and signals and actually trying to find ways to cope, to self-regulate, to self-operation the way you move forward.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Let's let's help our listeners because your story is incredible. And I would love for you to share it with us so that we can understand just how you have lived experience. That's how you understood and were called to this. And now you're using that pain for purpose. And it's amazing. So can you share your story with us?

Diagnosis And The Middle Way

unknown 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So I'm not going to bore everyone with how I grew up, but I will I will tell them about how a huge pivot, a life pivot, a huge um challenge. Um a huge pain came into my life. So it was 2014. Uh, I came back from a trip with a friend um to Amsterdam, Paris, and London. I noticed when I was staying at a hotel, my sheets would be drenched. I'm like, that's weird. I'm in Europe, I'm not in some tropical country. I'm like, okay. I came back at that moment in my life. Pam, I was only seeing a naturopath. Not that I didn't believe in traditional, I just didn't need, I didn't even take aspirin, okay? And so he looked at my blood work and he goes, Sabio, this could be like three things, my friend. It's like, I normally don't tell this to my patients, but you need to go seek mainstream medicine and get a sonogram. I'm like, a sonogram? I'm like, why? And he didn't say a sonogram. They wouldn't let me leave the office for an hour and a half. They told me to get a relative to come pick me up. I'm like, I drove here. I'm an adult. They're like, no, you need to get someone to come and go to the hospital. I went to the hospital within an hour and a half. They admitted me to the fifth floor. And then that same night, I heard nurses whispering that I would be transferred to the seventh floor, which they called the cancer floor. So I had an inkling that it was cancer. I didn't know what. I got admitted to the seventh floor, and about a day later, they told me it was stage three, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the B cell diffuse variety. I was bedridden for a week because my stomach was getting distented and they had to let go about eight liters of fluid from my abdomen. I stayed an additional six days, and two days before I left, the medical director came to me. She's like, Listen, we know that you're healthy. We know you don't, you know. But she's like, you have to start something called RCOP chemotherapy. If you don't, I don't know what's going to happen to you. I'm like, really? And she's like, yeah. And so I did what most people do. I relied or called a friend who at that moment in my life was one of the wisest people I've known. And she's like, Are you sure you want to put those poisons, those toxins in your body? She goes, It ravages everything. And I really had I had to question myself. So here I, bedridden for a week, tied to all these tubes, being just told I have to get R-Track human. I didn't have a choice, right? No one told me in home. I had this was before AI, I had no chance to research anything, except for Google. And so I'll tell you, Pam, I don't know if it was a dream or a flash of insight, but what came to me was a movie that I remembered in the 90s called Little Buddha. It was starring Keanu Reeves as Siddhartha, which was the Buddha before he became enlightened. As people don't know the story, but Siddhartha grew up in a very wealthy family. He gave up all his possessions. And the movie the scene that I saw in my head was that scene where he's basically meditating with two aesthetics. They were living on, I think, one or two a day. He overhears while meditating two individuals on a fishing. One of them says, if you hold the string too loose, it won't play. If you hold it too tight, it will snap. The path is the middle way. Like, oh, and it was like a flash of insight. I'm like, oh, I have autonomy. So I said yes to the chemo. I did it at the hospital. I had five other rounds every three weeks. After, and then I did a whole bunch of integrated modalities. I mean, I did as much research and did as many things as I possibly could to support the healing. And four and a half months, I was able to get a remission status five days before Christmas, the best Christmas prison I could have. And then I was in remission for a decade until June of 2024.

Relapse Transplant And Reframing Treatment

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Oh, I bet that news was just flooring. Back to the hospital situation. First and foremost, I am so sorry all that happened to you. You're using it. And that's what we teach here on Delay the Binge is we have to use it like fuel, energy. Struggles become stepping stones. But not just for yourself, but for everyone else that needs to hear it. I can just visu I'm visualizing, I'm putting myself in your shoes, hearing them say you're going to the seventh floor, the cancer floor. That had to be so surreal. Is this really happening to me? I've had those moments before. It's just we're resilient. Some doctors would say I have a high pain tolerance. I don't really go to the doctor unless it's really, really, really, really, really bad.

unknown 11:31

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

And by the time I get there, it's out of their control sometimes.

unknown 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

I just kept going, kept working. I just learned to ignore it very young. I think most people assume that if the crisis is over, recovery is over. Why do you think we believe that those are the same thing?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Well, we want to ease our pain. We want to create comfort out of discomfort. And a lot of people, rightly so, they do believe we just got to get through this crisis. We just got to fix it. We got to patch it up, gotta make it work. But that's not where I know the truth to be. That's not where after speaking with 2,000 plus leaders, change makers, even celebrities, it's really about what happens after the crisis. How do you figure out a way forward? How do you recalibrate? How do you regulate? How do you reorientate? That is the magic. That's when you win or lose, because that actually sets you up for a stronger structure, a stronger base.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

We set these goals, and then when we reach them, we're like, oh, this is not what I thought it would be. We're never happy. But in reality, that gives you a sense of purpose, how to continue growing. Even though it's painful sometimes.

unknown 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, there's there's a few things, especially in the work that I do as an executive coach, people often want that performance. They think that's the magic thing. But my central theme thesis is performance doesn't fail first. Clarity does. You need clarity. You need to figure out for yourself why are you doing this? What do you want this to actually manifest? What do you actually want out of this? Because in an age of disruption, you know, politically, socially, now technologically with AI, we are not lacking Pam in content. We got tons of it. People are creating it with seconds and seconds and seconds of content. We are lacking in connection, not content. And so the more that we connect and figure out for ourselves what is actually driving those things, it's a great lesson. We didn't talk about my relapse, but in my relapse in the hospital, I was in the hospital for 29 days. I lost 26 pounds. I was in a quarantine room. I got a stem cell transplant. I had tachycardia one night, so bad, 160, 170, that they had to rush me to IC to get norpinephrine. I I didn't even know if if I was going to be okay the next day, to be honest with you. But I surrendered and I submitted to it. I decided to reframe everything that was happening to me. So in other words, instead of the chemo as being poisonous and ravaging the body, I allowed it, I reframed it as an elixir, as mana from the universe, as it's been said in the Bible. I knew that I had to actually allow that, that those medicines were biologically, scientifically engineered to do one thing, to do what it needs to do. So if I resist on some level energetically, then I'm not allowing that to manifest. Now, I'm not trying to negate the fact that chemo is deadly. It gives you side effects. If I tell you about TMI, about the bathroom stuff that I was going through, you would not, this would not be a PG-rated show. I was tired, but I made sure that when the doctors came in and did their rounds, I met them because they weren't just healing me. We were in an energetic bond with one another. I was healing them as well through my own presence. So I made sure I was present and I mustered as much energy to actually say to them, now think about this experts, doctors, oncologists, nurses, 13, 14 deep one day. I looked at them and I said, I talked to all these nurses giving checking my vitals. I was there 29 days. I said, I'm not someone who wants to rush to go home. I would love to go home, but I don't want to come back. So keep me and discharge me whenever you feel is the best time for me to do. And so I was there 29 days. Typically, people are there for 21 days. But that was my story. I got out of the hospital. Um, I they did scans, blood work. I ended up getting a complete response to treatment. I don't use remission anymore, but it was a CR complete response. And my doctor said, you could do an immunotherapy if you want. It's like a it's like an extra insurance policy. I said yes to it, even though my sister's like, why would you do that? I said, because if it came back, that's not available to me, is it? So let me just see the course through. And so I did that for four and a half months, and then I did five months of physical therapy as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

I'm here to tell the tale. Oh my gosh. You spent twenty I don't know if think about this, people, twenty-nine days in an isolation room during your stem cell transplant. That's not just a week or two. That's four weeks. And just openly trusting the process. So many people fight it or don't trust it or not allowing themselves to be vulnerable. And that can affect your healing. Well, I really feel strongly that you healed like you did because you just leaned into the whole thing, allowing them to do what they knew to do. What else were you to let them try?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Absolutely. And then I also knew as well that once I get out of there, the job of healing isn't done, because I will die on this sword pan. Healing is not linear. Healing is about figuring out pockets of any type of joy that you can find. Healing goes back and forth. It goes round and round. It's not one way. And anyone who tells you that, they're not telling you the truth.

Silence Stillness And Self-Forgiveness

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Because if you look at pain, if you look at people that suffer, you actually see a common thread. And the thread is always self-forgiveness. Let me tell you, Pam, I've interviewed, like I said, thousands of people. I've also interviewed 200 cancer survivors before my relapse in June of 2024. I wrote a best-selling book, taking 35 of their stories, including my own. And the common thread to all of that was self-forgiveness. And the way you actually figure that out, of course, I have frameworks, I have, you know, the aloha reboot, we can get into that. But let's just let's just cut to the chase. At the end of the day, it's two things that I somehow figured out when I was there in that in that quarantine room, which was the anchor of silence and stillness. No one could take it away from me. I could access it anytime, anywhere. It was free. It only called on me to sink into that. And I call it a spiritual exile of 29 days. I grew up Catholic. I was a great altar boy for elementary school, but I also in college studied other belief systems. I knew that there had to be truth in other forms. So I've studied everything from Buddhism, um, Jewish mysticism, all the way to Vedic philosophy. So I took all my experiences and I said, this is the test of my life right now. I thought I went through the test. This is another one.

unknown 19:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

That's the exact um reason that I felt so linked to your message with mine, because you say that silence and stillness became teachers during that time. Most people, it's a very noisy world. Most people spend their lives trying to avoid silence and stillness. I guess what it showed you is that you learned how to utilize that. And it kind of like my pause on Delay the Bend, we talk about the pause, the moment before the reaction that's hurting you, harming you, not serving you. It's not 29 days. Pausing. But we don't give a limit. Some people can pause 10 seconds, but other people have to pause a lot longer.

unknown 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Maybe that's what it would take was 29 days for you.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

And then also with that, someone recently asked me if they're like, oh, you beat it once. You you knew you were gonna beat it. No, I didn't, Pam. I, before I started this, my oncologist, fantastic oncologist, took an hour and a half explaining to me the comprehensive protocol for a relapse or refractory lymphoma. It was no joke. It was so much so that I actually looked at him afterwards and I said to him, Dr. Steinberg, do you really think I could do this? And he paused and he said, Yes, Mr.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Clemente, I actually think you can. So I did. I went forward.

unknown 20:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

That is the most incredible story. I mean, it makes me look at you like, wow, I really want to get to know this man for strength.

The Inner Stranger And Identity

SPEAKER_02 20:47

You said something in one of in your speaker reel, I think, that you realized you had been treating your body like a stranger. That really stood out to me. What did you mean by that?

unknown 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

So it was in my TEDx talk. So I did TEDx talk about, yes, two years prior to the relapse in June. Um I did it in 2023. And in there I named it Seven Minutes to Wellness, How to Love Your Inner Stranger. And people are like, What? Inner stranger? And yeah, I wanted to be cute. And yes, I wanted to be a little bit nebulous, but I also knew with TEDx, they're very specific. It's that idea worth spreading. It's not about your opinion, it's about the idea. So I'm like, how can I get an idea across in such an easy way? And so someone asked me, like, what do you mean inner strangers? So what's your inner stranger? I'm like, well, my inner stranger was that young person that never felt like truly grounded or rooted. Like I was friends with people. Thankfully, I wasn't bullied or anything. I wasn't an outcast, but I never felt completely connected. I just never did. It's gotten better as I got bolder. And then the person, uh, she's like, oh, I get it. She goes, my inner stranger is that idealized. Businesswoman that that rock star I want to be and I can't, or that great sibling, or that great mother. I just can't seem to do it. And so it's something that I echoed on stage. The first thing I said, if you saw yourself in the mirror, would you recognize was reflecting back at you? Because that's the inner stranger that lives deep within. And so with that, I have an acronym called the Aloha Rebook, which we can go into further. But that's really that's really the premise of it.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

I love how you name things. I do too. That's how I use utilize them, is by naming certain frameworks or methods.

Early Signs Of Quiet Depletion

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Many of our listeners are high-functioning, driven people. They're capable, responsible, dependable. What are the early signs that someone's life or choices or decisions or making quality is beginning to shift under sustained pressure? So you know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

I know exactly what you're talking about. You know, Oprah back in the 90s would often talk about this idea of life sends you a pebble, then sends you a stone, then it sends you a rock, then it sends you a boulder. And so to mirror that, I would say that we all to some degree have signals or patterns that are constantly being sent or fed to us. We're just silent or still to understand them. Or we give precedence to so many other things in our lives that we feel is more important. Now, I'm not trying to tell your listeners and viewers to say an F you to their work. Of course, work's important. But what's more important is how do you have that great relationship with yourself. How do you actually figure out for yourself what's actually really moving me or what's actually propelling me to joy, to interest, to desire. Because life gives us those and it's we're not paying attention. And in a disruptive world, I can see why, because we're called reactionary to so many things. And so when I deal with leaders, imagine this, I deal with healthcare leaders who have high stakes with themselves, their team, the organization, and then another human being. Like that is serious. And so the work is about them recognizing for themselves where where do they fall on that spectrum of work, of enjoyment, of life, of pleasure? Where where are they falling into that? And so for me, the work with them is really about figuring out how do they deal with the pressure that comes with the cognitive load, cognitive um uh you know, decision fatigue. How does that actually work in the role of what they do? Because let's face it, and I'll tell you a story here. We all wear a mask, but they wear one that's pretty evident because they have to know the information, they're responsible as to what happens afterwards. There's adherence issues, there's compliance issues. And it's funny because a few months right before my relapse, my editor said, Savia, I have an assignment for you. Now, Pam, I cover health, wellness, and leadership. He says, Would you like to go and cover the Oscar's red carpet? Like, what? He said, Yeah, there's an opportunity. I I I thought of you. I'm like, okay, so I had a friend who lived in LA. Thankfully, I was able to see Malibu and Venice before the fires. So I had a great time and I went to this thing, and I'm there, a whole bunch of entertainment journalists, right, right on the front line. Celebrities come, and it hits me. They're still acting, Pam. They're showing good face for me as a journalist, good face for their handlers, their managers, the photographers. They're not being real. They're acting. And I'm like, oh my God, it's that coach, it's that speaker, uh, it's that journalist in me that sees this now fully. Ah. And so I just translate that story as a real-world story that even something as uber as the Oscars, people are just not being really authentic.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Well, and that's probably the very reason all of these famous people go off the deep end. I just think that life must be so stressful because it seems like all of them get divorces and have all this traumatic stuff happening. But it happens to all of us. That's the epitome of what we call quiet depletion, which is uh everything looks fine on the outside, like you said, the mask, but on the inside, we are emotionally distressed and exhausted, which is the reason we turn to unhealthy behaviors. Overeating, overdrinking, overworking, you name it. Scrolling, believe it or not, is a big deal. People can't stop. They're really addicted to scrolling for hours. Anything to avoid seeing what the real pain is. Leaders that you work with, I'm sure they're things like having a bad day. They try to make an excuse. They they think that it's stress or just their personality or they're just having a bad day. But in reality, it's something else. It's the decision fatigue that's just building up.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah. Because the brain scans for threats. And doctors have to be mindful of the patient that's in front of them, of the compliance issues that's in front of them, of the administration tasks that's in front of them.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

And that just creates an avalanche of well, and they have to kind of numb out, or it would be too emotionally difficult to watch people's pain and suffering all day, every day. I can't even imagine. I guess the good thing is what the ones that they heal, the ones that they help when where it matters, but it's not always that way.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

I know. And it's really interesting because I know you do a lot of work with emotional intelligence, and it's really interesting because, you know, we were told a while that intelligence was the number trait to have no emotional intelligence. But you know, another discovery I made while going through my own traumatic experiences was this idea of metacognition.

Metacognition And Measuring EQ

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Who's doing the thinking of the thinking? Who's the savio in the hospital bed tied to all these machines, four hours every getting vitals checked? And the other larger self. Who's actually thinking about the thinking? Uh, and it's funny because I just had a meeting two weeks ago with a company, actually backed by Y Combinator. Y Combinator has backed a lot of major companies. They're actually doing the first wearable that's measuring EQ. Yeah, they're actually sending me the device when it rolls out, and I'm writing a story about it. But um I'm so intrigued. But my whole point in mentioning this is that only when you put through that kind of pressure, and there's there's some good pressure. How does a diamond form through pressure? But when you deal with work pressures, all you want to do is get it off your plate. And so the more that you do that, the more that actually you don't realize actually who's actually functioning here. Am I actually self-regulating here? Am I doing it through meditation, journaling, breathing, um, walking in silence, humming? How are you creating that? Because a lot of them don't have it. And I don't know about you, but I'm a huge fan of the show The Pit on HBO Max. But I will tell you, Pam, my nervous system is a wreck, is a wreck when I watch that show. I actually have to come back to some level of balance. I'm like, Vegas is you know, Vegas nerve, come on. You know, I'm like, you gotta act on this. But I love watching, you know why? Because it it's it's the singular truth throughout everything that I do, everything that I've seen, everything that I've experienced is that the people taking care of us are not taking care of themselves. Bottom line.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Exactly. And a lot of them don't even know that they are quietly depleted. They have this gradual, very slow loss of capacity, energy, joy. They don't feel anything, clarity and connection, and it happens long before people realize there's a problem until it starts affecting them physically. And I'm sure that intersects with what you've observed in the leaders that you work with, especially in the medical field.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

But I think they say that uh I read a statistic that over 70% of women are affected by quiet depletion.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

And affects both men and women, but a big percentage of it is women. I guess because we're checking all the boxes, we're doing it all.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

And to the level of expectation of ourselves, we our expectations and the expectations of others.

unknown 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

That was drilled into our heads when we were six years old. What a woman is supposed to do.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Another data point that I was floored by. So I'm currently running an interview series with CEOs and CMOs on the healthcare leadership operating system, as I call it. And one of them gave me a data $760 to $935 billion in healthcare waste in the US. Do you think that's all equipment? No, that's humans making ill decisions. That's pressure rising that they themselves are not seeing or thinking clearly. That's disruption happening and not knowing how to move forward. That's the bottleneck. That's what I call the post-crisis leadership gap, is that it drifts, it shifts, gets larger and larger until the chasm creates. And then how do you come back to it's really difficult.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

What an amazing framework that's so useful for them, I'm sure. And do you notice that uh once they gain clarity, if their clarity is degrading, what do you teach them about what the signs are, what to look for?

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

What to look for, how to actually spot them before they become a problem, how to self-reg that's a huge one. I know we talk about this all the time, but self-regulation is huge because people think I gotta self-regulate in the moment. No, I'm gonna self-regulate before. So you can like traumatize yourself to the situation. Otherwise, you're just hitting reset and not actually figuring out. Which goes back to my aloha reboot, which is a great reset.

The Aloha Reboot In Practice

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Seven minutes to wellness. So seven minutes. I call it aloha. It's an acronym. A stands for acknowledge, knowledge where you are. In my situation, my dramatic situation. I'm in a hospital, stem cell transplant. Every four hours I come in, the doctors are coming to do the rounds. This is my reality. I'm not pretending. I don't want to go anywhere. I'm here. L stands for listening, so listen to your inner self. But as we all know, aloha in Hawaiian means hello, so it's a hello to your inner self. But in Hawaiian, there's actually a healing modality called Huna healing. And the kahunas of Hawaii believe that the body not only has sensations, but has language, has consciousness. So if you're still and silent enough, you can actually talk to those body parts. I call it the three brains, head, heart, and gut. I don't think that people should do this in front of other people. You might think you're strange, because it's not really gonna answer you. And you be careful. So that's the listening part. O stands for opening, so open yourself up to this, no matter what your belief system is. It's just exploring yourself. H stands for harnessing, harness all this information, see the mental connection, see what works, what doesn't work, not everything's gonna work. And A stands for acting, but I always put a caveat because you need courage to act. So because there's a lot of research in the data that you know, it's the models of change, the stages of change. It says that people don't not want to change. They do, they just don't know how to change. They don't know if they're thinking about change, contemplation in change, when they're in change, they want to relapse. So you have to have courage to do this. And someone said to me, I don't have seven minutes, which I thought was crazy, but okay. I didn't want to judge them. So I said, take one of the acronyms, do it one day or five days, one minute. There you have it.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

It's so interesting to me because I believe that people that wait for motivation to do anything, any action, they're never going to do it. I am a firm believer that motivation happens after the action. So how do we get enough oompha to actually do it even though we don't want to?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah. You know, you know what works with me in the work that I do is actually not only asking them or resourcing when they've encountered a problem like that before. It's not that. It's the feeling you're feeling. When have you experienced that feeling? In what context? And resource that feeling, not the situation. Because they'll say to me, Oh, this is like AI is a new thing. I I this is I never experienced that five years ago. No, no. What's AI doing for you right now? Is it making you self-conscious? Is it making you worried? Is it making you stressed? Okay, so let's take all those three words that you said. How have you felt, where have you felt that in your body? A lot of my coaching work is embodiment, is somatic work. So it's not even just talking about it, it's where it's actually hitting you. How is it actually informing you? What is actually blocking you from that?

SPEAKER_02 35:52

So is aloha, does it have something to do with that gap you talk about between performance expectations and cognitive reality?

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it goes back to that thesis, right? Performance doesn't fail full, clarity does. So the more you're clear with yourself and what you exude, right? There's that great woman, her name escapes me now, where she looks at clothes and she says, Does that spark joy? And then she just throws it away. She's like, if it doesn't spark joy, then get rid of it. Um yeah, Maria Kondo. That's so I tell people the same thing in your life. I believe that life is about catch and release. You cannot fill a pot that's already full. You have to empty the contents in order to put new, fresh waters, fresh living things in it. So you have to catch and release. That's just, I really believe that's what we're here to do.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Yes, and it falls into play with kindness. People think they take kindness for granted because it's a superpower. It literally is for the giver and the receiver. It literally heals for you to pour kindness onto someone else. And it just takes seconds. It's not like it's gonna take all day long or it's not an extra thing you have to do on your list. You can it can happen at any point. It could even just be a smile at someone you're passing by in a doorway. That's why it feels so good. When we are kind, it feels good, it feels right. And when we are unkind, we have shame and guilt and anger.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

You know, in my experience, after interviewing thousands of people, being on stages, um also, you know, writing the books that I I've done and talking with cancer survivors, because I've interviewed 200 of them.

Forgiveness Boundaries And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 37:46

There's a common thread to all of that, and it's about forgiveness. But it's not about forgiving someone else, it's about self-forgiveness. It's something I see, it's something I see all the time, it's something that always bubbles up, and it's always something someone doesn't want to verbalize. But it's about did I allow myself that situation? Did I agree to that? Why did I do that? Could I have done it better? What was I thinking? It's allowing yourself to forgive the mistakes and to embrace the things that did work.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Yeah, I had to do a lot of work around forgiveness, and then I realized you can say or even think, innocently think that you have forgiven someone. I have a trick question for myself, and it's helped with other people. I think you've truly forgiven someone if you wish good things to happen for them. Correct. Absolutely correct. And not bad things, because I had to. I thought that was normal. And it there's a big difference in that. But I really began to heal when I started forgiving people that hurt me. It was just freeing. I felt so much when I really did forgive. Not just telling them, I forgive you.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

I use the visual, and thank you for sharing that. I use the visual that mirrors Easter philosophy in the sense that the river does not rush, the sea does not rush, the river knows its direction. Even if if there's a rock, it goes under, it goes over, it knows where it needs to go through the bend. There's a root system with the seed that we cannot see that actually has its own intelligence and it does what it needs to do. And so this is how I view it, because I actually had something with a friend that I've known for over 14 years. And I had to end it with him. And instead of being yeah, because he said something and did something, he was he was showing signs that he was doing it, but I was kind of just putting it off, putting it off. He said something, did something that was so egregious to me that I blocked him from everything. And it took me a couple days, but I said his leaf or his flower in that river just going a different direction. I wish him well on that direction. I don't dislike him, but I don't want to join in on that journey with him. And that's how I was able to come to that forgiveness with myself.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Wow, that took courage because a lot of times we continue to endure so much for so long. And I really feel strongly that people without the thing that they're battling, this trauma or whatever it is you're battling or or struggling with, I think they fear for it to go away because who are they without it? Without this thing. I think they're afraid that they don't, they won't recognize who they are.

unknown 41:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Because survival gives you purpose. And I would hear this from all these cancer survivors. My team, I have scans, I have blood work, I uh um I have to do surgery. I you hear this, right? And then if you ring the bell, which I didn't ring another bell, by the way, you ring the bell, where's your team? Your partner doesn't understand, your friends don't understand, where's there's no more team, there's no more appointments, there's no more things you have to do. You have to do things on your own. And that's where I really feel, as much as I am a board-certified health and wellness coach, there are silos. And rightly so, I can see where healthcare doesn't see the the total benefits of wellness, and I can see wellness being a little, you know, woo-woo, and there's nothing subnitive about. So I often tell people all the time that you have to find that. That is your responsibility after that. If you're still here, then you have to find it.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

Yes, because you have to now approach what was going on with you before the disease. I'm sure there was a lot happening before you realized you had cancer. It's like post-bariatric patients. I am a post-bariatric patient seven years ago. And I had to transition into a whole new life. But the hardest part for me was getting everyone on board to eat differently. It was a huge transformation. And I did, and the doctor says you have one year to lose the bulk of your weight. And then you'll experience regain if you're not careful. But they don't ever teach you how to maintain your progress. Because if I had learned that, then over they say it's like over 80% of post-bariatrics regain their weight.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

That's a big percent. That's a lot of struggle because what they do is they're relying on the tool and all the people around them when they're first going through it and the process, but then they're gone. And then they have to rely on themselves. A lot of times they didn't deal with what brought them to that place in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

I think it's similar. It would be similar, like you have all this buzz around you trying to heal you. And then all of a sudden, when you ring the bell, that's not around you anymore.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

And rightly so, right? They have other tasks, they have other people that they have to help. Correct. I totally understand, but the tools aren't there. And so it's your job to resource yourself or to resource things that are available to you. You have to take action. It's not just about overcoming that. It's about Who do you become after that? That's what post-crisis is. It's about not the crisis only, it's about what happens after. I mentioned to you earlier before we started this that I've lost nine people to cancer since my relapse in June of 2024. For some of them, it was their first time. So I do not take this lightly. This is not a burden. This is a huge responsibility that I'm willingly wanting to be part of. Because I feel like my pain, my dis my um discomfort, my sadness can be transformed into showing some someone else that it is possible, that there is something else after this. You know, oftentimes in Vedic philosophy, they often talk about the fact that this reality of ours is an illusion. They call it Maya. But the truth is that this is not an illusion. This is real. This is real, real stuff happening to us. The illusion is that this is all there is. There's something else. I can't name it, I can't validate it, but I know it to be true because the greatest fear for me, Pam, wasn't dying. And I've had to go through this twice now. It was the fact that I didn't live fully, that I didn't, that I disappointed myself, that whatever that assignment was, I didn't complete. That was the painful thing that I had to contend with.

unknown 45:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

It's what you didn't do. It's like that Tim McGraw song. What is it called? Where he's sitting in the doctor's office on the video and they've given the diagnosis that he has cancer. And so he talks about all the things that he didn't do. I have to remember the name of the song for you, but it was pretty intense. That's true. I think if I tap into my empathy gene, the first thing I would think about, I haven't done all these things.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

It's really interesting because I was actually more concerned about stuff I didn't do for other people. Like things that I yeah, it wasn't it, yeah, it wasn't really like I want to make millions of dollars, or you know, of course I have stuff I have to pay for, but it was it it and it wasn't like, oh, I you know, I want that six pack again. Like, who cares? It wasn't that, it was it was more about what am I contributing to this overall thing that we're all think about it, we're on a j giant floating rock in space. The Hubble telescope has discovered worlds and worlds out there. What are what are we doing here? And so for me it was like did I do what I need to do? I don't know. But I accepted it, and that's the thing we all have to do. We have to accept not the outcome because none of us know, there's no guarantees. We have to accept what is right in front of us.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

And choose the next right thing.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

But first you gotta see it.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Exactly. And that's where still is a silence. I tell them all the time. It's like the cheapest, freest thing ever. No one can take it away from if you're like, you know, like in jail, you can still get that. If you're in a hospital like I was, you can get that. If you're like, you know, that's just available to all of us.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

It's like a toolbox you carry around with you everywhere. It's built inside of you. It's like a pause. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

And and it's all it goes back to, right? Everyone knows resilience, but I like to say it's adaptive resilience. It's when when I was in the SHIT, how do I make the connections? How do I remain flexible as to what's actually happening to me? How do I figure out what I can do tomorrow? I mean, there was a week, Pam, that I didn't want to eat anything. I had no appetite at all. Not because I was throwing up, I just didn't have any appetite. I lost 26 pounds in 29 days. I mean, my oncologist a few months after said, Can I tell you because he knows my personality? I said, Can I can I tell you something, Mr. Quentin? Yeah. He goes, you know, us oncologists have this like thing that we say that's like the best weight loss journey go on is to have a stem cell chance. And he knew I would he knew I would find humor in that because um I think laughter also healed me as well, because as worse as it was some days, and even when I came out, I had a neck catheter and all these things, right? They hook you up to, which I'm which I feel very fortunate to be able to have. Other countries you don't have access to that, so I I say that with great respect. Um, I had to find laughter because laughter is medicine, and it reminded me of an interview I did with um the voice, his uh his last name is Paul Son. He's just the voice of Pinky in the Brain, and he had he had throat cancer. And he said the worst thing for him wasn't the fact that he had throat cancer, was that the work that he did with voices was now in jeopardy. And so his team actually said in order to heal you, you're gonna have to kill you. And he was healed, and he's still there doing voices, but he said that for him laughter was his strongest medicine. He had gallows humor, as he called it, and so for him it was important.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

It it falls into play with choose joy. It is a choice. You have to allow it to happen.

Finding Clarity And Finishing Strong

SPEAKER_02 49:52

Now, if someone listening right now who suspects they've never fully recovered from a difficult season, where should they begin?

SPEAKER_01 50:04

They need to ask themselves where does clarity lie on the spectrum of my life? How can I find pockets of it that I've either lost or didn't recognize or put put to the side? Um it sounds simplistic, but it's really an exercise in understanding your motivation, yourself. I mean everyone loves these gratitude lists. One of my mentors mentioned when you do the gratitude list, ask yourself why that happened. So for example, I have a house. Why did that happen? Oh, okay, because I scrimped and saved and I invested and whatever. Because it makes it more sticky. And so the more clear you are, the better you're able to not only figure out your your next steps, but you exude a level of awareness that people actually are guided to and attracted to, and that makes it a more positive association.

SPEAKER_02 51:05

So much wisdom. Is that what you would like our listeners to remember if it was just one thing they they could remember from today's conversation? What do you hope it is?

SPEAKER_01 51:15

I would say clarity, but in order to gain that, intentional silence, create that pocket. I'm telling you. It's ch it's life-changing because it allows you to really figure out for yourself that all this noise, as you called it earlier, is not really facilitating anything worthwhile. It's just creating more problems for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

A distraction from from who you've always been. I always tell people that you don't have to change, you just need to come back to who you have always been, who you were meant to be.

unknown 51:50

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

That's been inside of us all along. It's take it's more about taking what's not working rather than adding to it. It's about removing.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

Yeah, and starting where you left off. You don't have to start over. Absolutely. Use it. So before we wrap up, where can our listeners learn more about your work and connect with you and follow the human resolve? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

So they can go to my website, um, sabiopclementi.com, S-A-V-I-L-P, C-L-E-M-E-N-T.com. Um, on there is my keynote work. I have a few more spots for 2026. I have my TEDx talk, I have my book in there as well. And then also I run a Substack newsletter every Wednesday. Right now, I'm currently running that CEO and CMO interview series with the healthcare leadership operating system. But I also talk about the head, heart, and gut intelligence, the three brains as I call it. It actually infuses everything that we do in life. And then if they want to find me on social media, I'm at every platform at the human resolve. And I named it that because at the end of the day, what else do we have, Pam, except resolve and resolution in our lives? That's the only thing we have.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

Exactly. I just agree with everything. And we're gonna put all that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Sabio, for sharing your story, your heart, and your wisdom and your perspective with us today. I think we could all use a dose of that. So you guys listen to this one over and over or share it with someone that could use it. So one thing I keep coming back to from this conversation, it keeps coming back in my mind, is just because the crisis ends, it doesn't mean recovery is complete. Many of us give ourselves permission to survive. Far fewer give ourselves permission to recover. And perhaps that's why so many people continue carrying invisible exhaustion long after everyone else believes they're fine. If today's conversation resonated with you, I'd love to stay connected at pamdwyre.com or delay the binge.com. It'll take you to the same website. Please consider following this podcast or leaving a review or sharing an episode with someone who might need it. Those simple acts help us continue bringing these life lessons, these wonderful stories and experiences to more people every week. So until next time, pause, choose, build momentum, and finish stronger. We'll see you next week. Hey, it's me Pam, and before we go, just a quick reminder. Everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who's walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Binge.